Auditing is quite different, both in terms of approach and result, from other efforts that purport to help Man improve his lot in life.

In psychoanalysis, for instance, the analyst does not accept what the person says but interprets it, evaluates his condition for him, reads sexual significance into his statements and tells him why he is worried, all of which merely confuse a person further and have no helpful effect. In auditing what the preclear says is never evaluated and his data is never refuted. To do so would totally violate the Auditor’s Code. Nor in auditing is the preclear encouraged to ramble on without guidance, ransacking the millions of incidents in his reactive mind and restimulating many in the hope he might stumble across the right one.

In the more brutal practice of psychiatry, force (physical, chemical or surgical) is used to overwhelm an individual’s ideas and behavior and render the patient quiet. There is no thought of improvement or help for the person here but only making patients more ‘manageable’. Auditing bears no resemblance to any part of this field.

Similarly, auditing bears no resemblance to psychology, which is primarily the study of observing responses to stimuli and provides no means of producing actual improvement. Other practices such as hypnotism consider that a person has to be put into a state of lessened awareness (i.e., a trance) before anything can be done. Auditing is quite the opposite and seeks to wake people up, not put them to sleep.